


Something As Sweet As Pain

by Avengerz



Series: Snippets [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Get Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5694196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippet from a Frostiron fic I was prompted for but never finished</p><p>
  <b>Wherein Loki flees a Mad God, becomes a villain, turns slightly less villain-y, and accidentally falls in love.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something As Sweet As Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some other authors who have done the same, I'm posting some of my uncompleted works. If there's enough interest or I get struck by inspiration, I may continue them. That being said, you can still read and enjoy them just fine, they just don't have a true conclusion.
> 
> Originally Written: September 10, 2015

Loki hadn’t believed them, see. “You will long for something as sweet as pain,” they had said, but Loki had shrugged it off. He was a prince, soon to be a King, and he was too focused on forming a plan to gain the Tesseract for himself and rid the universe of the abomination that called himself Thanos to worry about what would happen if he failed.

Tricksters could be blind like that; so focused were they on weaving their web of lies and manipulation that they didn’t realize how far the fall would be should one strand break.

But Loki had been successful. He had come to Midgard with half a dozen objectives (no clever man acted without multiple goals) and he’d managed to complete almost all of them.

Obtain the Tesseract? Check. Test Midgard’s defenses? Check. Destroy Thanos’s Chitauri army? Check. Find a force capable enough to possibly defeat Thanos?…Check. After all, those so-called Avengers were a capable bunch.

More capable than Loki had predicted, actually. It wasn’t in Loki’s original plans to be captured, but so it went. It hadn’t set Loki back for long. Why Thor would think enchanted cuffs and a muzzle would fully contain a sorcerer of Loki’s caliber was beyond him, but his “brother’s” slip made escape easy.

Halfway to Asgard, along the path the Tesseract took them, Loki stretched out magic fingers, wrested control of the Tesseract. He made sure Thor arrived in Asgard safely enough (sentiment) but his destination was the tiny blue world he had just left.

After that, Loki couldn’t adequately describe what had happened. How things had changed between him and the Avengers. Between him and Stark.

Well, no, this much was clear: The Midgardian organization SHIELD found him quickly enough, but their agents were no match for him. Then they sent the Avengers after him, which was Loki’s goal all along. After all, he needed to make sure his initial impression was correct, that the Avengers truly could take on an opponent as strong as the Mad Titan.

And that’s what he was doing, testing them, even as their fierce battles shifted to something more similar to mock skirmishes. New Yorkians grew used to billboards randomly coming to life, or giant gummy bears stumbling through the streets. Loki told himself that nothing had changed, the monthly attacks were just to make sure his Avengers were still in top shape. No other reason.

Loki was the God of Lies, but even he couldn’t lie to himself.

It was Stark, and Loki knew it. The mortal had intrigued him the very first time they met, almost a year ago, with his confident smirk and mischievous eyes and offer of a drink. And in their clashes now, Loki found great delight in flyting* with the clever man. Stark was a genius, in every sense of the word, and Loki loved it. This man, this hero, who carried chaos in the lines of his smile and mischief in his brown eyes and lies in every calculated movement.

Stark could have been tailor made for Loki.

Perhaps the man realized the same, because after one “battle” (light stops turned to ice cream. The kids had loved it, but it hadn’t helped New York traffic) the man once again extended an offer for a drink.

Loki accepted.

He suspected the other Avengers knew, and disapproved, but they didn’t interfere. Loki wasn’t able to get drunk on Midgardian alcohol, but he managed to get pleasantly tipsy. Too tipsy, perhaps, alongside Stark, for Loki found himself spilling secrets he had never told anyone. The reality of living in Thor’s shadow, they way he had been scorned for his natural talent for magic (despite how many lives that same magic had saved over the years), the anger he had felt knowing that Thor would become king, despite how undeserving he was. The coronation ceremony. His true heritage.

Stark listened in a silence Loki hadn’t even believed him capable, never interrupting, never looking away. Loki poured his secrets into those expressive brown eyes, and saw them filled with sorrow, with anger, with resentment on his behalf. When Stark finally spoke, it was to tell secrets of his own. A loving but distant mother, a perpetually-disappointed father, the father figure who tried to kill him. The horrible things he suffered in Afghanistan. The way he still couldn’t take baths.

Loki woke up the next morning in Stark’s bed. Though they had been far too drunk to get up to anything, something had shifted between them. Showing such vulnerability meant one of two things to men like them. Imminent death… or trust.

Trust was a concept that had become almost foreign to Loki. Stark helped him remember what it was.

Loki ended up waking in Stark’s bed many more mornings after that.

But he became complacent. He was happy, with a mortal who lo-cared for him, and a team that tolerated him, and a government agency that reluctantly let him consult on magical cases. Things were good enough that he forgot why he had returned to this world in the first place.

But Thanos hadn’t forgotten him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Would anyone like to read more?
> 
> Also, you can find me at [anthonyfuckingstark](http://anthonyfuckingstark.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want!


End file.
